50 Years of the October Revolution (Moscow 1967)

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution, the Soviet Union gathered eighteen of the world's leading grandmasters — four World Champions among them — for what was then regarded as one of the strongest tournaments in the history of chess. Out of that company it was Leonid Stein who emerged clear first, finishing ahead of Smyslov, Tal, Spassky and the reigning champion, Tigran Petrosian.

◇A jubilee super-tournament

Soviet chess had become, in Raymond Keene's phrase, the greatest national chess-playing machine the world has ever seen, and its fiftieth-anniversary showpiece was staged to prove it. Eighteen grandmasters played a single round-robin of seventeen rounds, 153 games in all. The field was almost absurdly deep: reigning World Champion Tigran Petrosian, former champions Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal and Boris Spassky, the great Paul Keres, David Bronstein, Efim Geller and Miguel Najdorf, alongside the strongest foreign visitors of the day — Lajos Portisch, Svetozar Gligorić, Florin Gheorghiu, Ludek Pachman, Wolfgang Uhlmann, Milko Bobotsov, Istvan Bilek and Miroslav Filip.

In such company any half-point mattered, and the tournament is still remembered as one of the most formidable elite events of the Cold-War era.

◇Stein's finest hour

Leonid Stein, three times Soviet champion but repeatedly blocked from the Candidates cycle by FIDE's federation quotas, answered his critics on the board. He won the jubilee tournament outright on 11/17, a point clear of a four-way tie for second on 10 between Smyslov, Tal, Bobotsov and Aivars Gipslis. Portisch, Spassky and Bronstein shared sixth on 9½; Petrosian, Geller, Keres and Najdorf trailed on 8½.

It was among the greatest results of Stein's career — the peak year of a player who, from 1963 until his sudden death from a heart attack in 1973 at just thirty-eight, was rarely out of the world's top ten and was still counted a genuine contender for the world title.

“The USSR certainly created the greatest national chess-playing machine the world has ever seen or is likely to see.”